


A Chance At Family

by AuroraKant



Series: A Multitude Of Birds [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batkids Age Reversal, Between Damian and Dick, Canon Typical Violence, Damian Wayne is the Wraith, Damian is such a dad, Dick Grayson is Robin, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, God... they are so dumb, Mentions of the other members of the Family, Reverse Batfam AU, Reverse Robin AU, Sibling Banter, Steph is having a field day with this, Stephanie Brown was Batgirl, Swearing, These kids (adults) are Dumbasses, YeetDC2020, discussions of canon character death, reverse batfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: Steph had been ready to return to Gotham and explain to everyone why she had been hiding away on the African continent for over seven years, when shemeetsDamian and Dick at the airport - the rest is, as they say, history. With an added bonus of hi-jinx.Or: Damian is a Dad, Steph did most certainlynotsign up for this, and Dick might be a demon child.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Dick Grayson
Series: A Multitude Of Birds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660951
Comments: 36
Kudos: 232





	A Chance At Family

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to another rendition of me and my Reverse Robin AU! <3  
> Many thanks to my beautiful gf for beta reading and for Gemini_Baby, who helped me find the title!  
> To understand this, you might want to check out the story before that, tho most things should be easy enough to follow!  
> I love comments, critique, bookmarks, kudos and the knowledge that you read and enjoyed it!  
> Look after yourself!

Stephanie looked at the kid, at Damian, and back at the kid. Finally, she spoke:

“You said what?”

This whole adventure had started with Stephanie trying to find the courage to tell Leslie that she would leave Somalia (or more accurately the continent Africa, since they had never stayed too long in one place) after seven years of helping the doctor.

She was done with this continent. She was done with Leslie telling her what to do. She was done with the sun. And the heat. And the sand that got into places sand should certainly never be at. She was done with having to do stuff to defend others, and, and…

And she wanted Gotham back. And her dad. She wanted to be Batgirl again, instead of the only blonde in a fifty-mile radius. She wanted Duke and Tim and her own bed. She wanted to see her mom and tell her how horribly sorry she was for ‘faking’ her death. 

So, Steph packed her bags and asked Malila to help her book a flight to Gotham. The only thing she didn’t do was tell Leslie that she was going. No, Steph packed her bags and let Amir and Nadifa drive her to the Garowe Airport early in the morning, thanking them both for the lift and the fun times they had spent together. And then they left her behind, both of them ready to face the fearsome doctor Leslie and the iron fist with which she taught her medical courses. And reigned over them.

But that wasn’t Steph, anymore. No, she was free of the doctor, she had a ticket back home, and she could do whatever the fuck she wanted. Which was why she stumbled across someone she had thought she would never see again in her entire life, when she reached the airport entrance: Damian fucking Wayne. The Wraith. The first fearsome son of the Batman, rumored to have died only months before her own untimely demise.

God, he was a son of a bitch.

Luckily for her, he was staring in a completely different direction, apparently waiting for a taxi or one of the city buses. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t alone. Steph didn’t know the small child that appeared at Damian’s side, but she could see the moment the kid recognized her.

The boy tugged on Damian’s sleeve, pointed in her direction, and started running after her when she decided to make a break for it. But, of course, nothing in her life could ever go according to plan. She chose exactly the wrong moment to dash for the doors leading inside the airport hall, as a plane full of businesspeople had apparently just unleashed its passengers into the world. Steph had no chance to disappear in the confusion, especially since she was maybe one of three white people in the entirety of the airport and the only one who was blonde.

The kid was onto her in seconds. It was honestly embarrassing for a former Batgirl.

“Hi! Are you Stephanie Brown?”

“No?”

Maybe it would work. But, no, the kid only raised an eyebrow at her rather unconvincing answer. And, yeah, the kid was definitely with Damian. She would recognize that eyebrow-raise anywhere. And speaking of the devil… Damian was close enough now that Stephanie could risk a glance.

_He_ was certainly no longer a boy. The last time they had seen each other Steph had been sixteen and he had just turned 20. There had still been softness in his face, a hint of childhood. Now with her in her mid-twenties, and him nearing his thirties every last ounce of baby fat had left his features. It was a man standing in front of her now, shadows under his eyes, a beard on his chin, and eyes that were just a touch too green.

Ah, she no longer had to ask herself just how Damian had returned from the dead.

“So, you’re alive. Congratulations.”

“So, you’ve been hiding away in Somalia, Brown.”

And he was charming as ever.

“Fuck you, too, Dames.”

She hadn’t come to the airport to exchange pleasantries with the son of Batman, and she wouldn’t let herself be pressured into it. Steph pushed past Damian, but in her shock to see the guy alive, she had forgotten about the boy. The boy who was now touching her arm, his big blue eyes wide with pleading:

“So, you are Stephanie then?”

She really wanted to leave. She really, really wanted to. But one look into these perfect, big, blue eyes and the tears that threatened to spill, and she broke. Just because she was capable of withstanding the most inhuman of torture didn’t mean that she was immune to puppy dog eyes.

“Yeah, I’m Stephanie Brown. And you are, kid?”

“Oh, I’m Dick Grayson. A pleasure to meet you!”

The tears were gone and instead a breathtaking smile greeted her. Fuck, the boy was good. One glance at Damian told Steph the rest: Yeah, the kid was always like this, and, yeah, it always worked.

“The pleasure is mine. Now, how did a nice boy like you meet a grumpy cat like Dames?”

“Hey!”

Steph couldn’t resist. And the appalled exclamation from Damian had been worth it. He had called her Fatgirl the first three times they met, and 14-year-old Stephanie had had enough body image issues without an 18-year-old guy telling her that she was fat. And if Steph couldn’t hold a grudge against stalker Damian, then who was she allowed to be carrying a grudge against?

“Oh, that is a funny story, really. I was taken in by Bruce after my parents died – that is not the funny part, it was really sad actually – but then I decided that Batman didn’t need a Robin. Batman needed to have his kids again.”

“What?”

Apparently, Damian hadn’t heard this story before either, judging by the surprised tilt of his dumb head. Now Steph was really intrigued.

“So, I decided to find them one after the other. I moved in with Damian because he is a good fighter and I find him funny. I would even say that I love him. But we fought with Batman – that was not the plan – and had to leave Gotham to do murder business somewhere else.”

Steph didn’t know what was more disturbing: the fact that the 12-year-old in front of her had just said ‘murder business’ with a smile on his face or the fact that Damian was deeply touched by the admission of the kid that he loved him.

Steph pinched herself, just to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming. But, no, her head wouldn’t betray her like that. Not even her mind could imagine something like this.

The boy – Dick – wasn’t finished yet, however:

“And now we’re traveling the world. And I continue with my plan.”

“Little Bird, would you be so nice and tell me what the fuck you mean by that?”

Huh, Steph was honestly surprised how soft Damian sounded when he spoke to the kid, even if he cursed and threatened. And Dick seemed to have no fear whatsoever of the great Damian Wayne. Interesting.

“Oh, to find every one of Bruce’s dead and lost children and return them home.”

Which brought them back to the present.

“You said what?”

Dick grinned:

“To find every one of Bruce’s dead and/or lost children and return them home. Dami was first and now we’re always together. You’re second. And together we’re going to bring Jason Todd back to life.”

Silence. Or as silent as a big Somalian airport at the beginning of a workday could be.

“And, yeah, after that we should try and force Bruce to talk it out with Tim because their relationship doesn’t seem healthy. And Cass needs to learn boundaries. But, you know.”

He shrugged his shoulders. Stephanie had stopped following after the first new name had fallen from Dick’s lips and one glance in Damian’s direction told her that he was similarly baffled by what this kid had just said.

“No, we do not know, Richard. I would encourage you to use a clearer kind of language.”

Oh-oh, Damian had full-named the kid. And the icy tone of Damian’s voice seemed to finally register in Dick’s brain as well. He grew a shade paler, before he squared his shoulders and explained:

“Families stay together even if they fight. And you guys are a family. And… I love Dami, and I would never want to go back to being Bruce’s kid, but Dami _is_ Bruce’s kid and so are you. And so is Jason. And I like the man. He made sure I didn’t suffer through more of a racist system than necessary. He gave me a home. So, I’ll return it to him.”

“So, you thought what? Let’s manipulate people into following my plan?”

Shit. Damian sounded pissed and as much as Steph would love to see the kid face some consequences for shamelessly using people, she also knew just what kind of rage came with the anger of the Lazarus Pit. But before Steph could do anything, Dick had moved. His thin little teenager – was he even that? – arms encircled Damian, hugging him tight.

“I’m sorry, Dami. You just never asked why I moved into your apartment. And we got along so well. You taught me how to fight, how to cook, and how to make origami out of take-out trash. And I never wanted for you to feel sad or angry because of that. I just thought that… that you missed your dad, too.”

And now the kid was crying.

Steph was ready to intervene, ready to punch Damian into a new galaxy should he dare to touch the boy, when she watched a wonder happen instead: The unnatural green glow of Damian’s eyes subsided, leaving the normal green of a Pit zombie behind. And then Damian glanced down at the crying child at his midriff and smiled. Steph couldn’t believe her eyes when he detached Dick from his stomach, so he could kneel down, face to face with Dick, before taking the kid’s face into his hands, drying his cheeks with fingers so rough Stephanie could see the callus from her position a few feet away.

“Shh, I understand, Little Bird. And I am sorry that I scared you. I am angry with you, yes, and Brown and I have every reason to be, but that is no justification for scaring you. I am very, truly sorry.”

This was Damian Wayne. The Wraith. A legend of bloodshed and death. The boy that had left Batman because he couldn’t stop killing. The boy whose fault it was that Tim never felt at home, never felt as loved as he should be.

And now… and now he was…

Damian Wayne was a _Dad_.

What the ever-loving fuck had gone wrong with the world?

How had she ended up here? Stephanie had no idea whatsoever.

The only thing she knew was that between Dick crying at the airport and Steph crouching in front of an old base of the League of Assassins, something had happened that made her want to help the boy.

She hadn’t been home in over seven years, what difference would a few more months make? And, hey, maybe she would have a surprise for Bruce when she finally returned.

Dick next to her was silent. It was hard to believe, but the boy had an iron discipline if he wanted to. And Steph had seen the training regiments Damian put him through. Discipline was definitely required.

They had traveled together for two weeks now, making their way from Garowe to the lands below Lake Nasser. Damian had told them that the League liked to build their bases close to big bodies of water, in case they needed to make some things disappear. Stephanie hadn’t known that, but then again, she had learned a great many things in the last few weeks:

  1. Damian really did behave like Dick’s dad and called the kid ‘Little Bird’ constantly. It was adorable.
  2. Dick was clever, resourceful, and a whirlwind of a kid. Steph loved him. Dick had hugged her twice on that first day and Steph had sworn to herself that she would kill for him.
  3. Damian might have mellowed out with age, but he was still a lower-case dick. As long as he continued calling her ‘Brown’ she would continue calling him Dames. He hated it. It was great.
  4. Apparently, Damian had killed most of the League of Assassins while he was gone. Which was why they were now searching for an intact base in hopes of finding a Lazarus Pit.
  5. She finally found out who Jason Todd was: The Falcon after Tim, who died after being tricked by the Joker. None of them had ever met him, since Steph and Damian had been dead, and Dick was still living with his family when it happened.
  6. They were doing all of this on the whim of Dick who wanted to steal the body of his dead older almost-brother and dump him in a Pit.
  7. Somehow Damian and Steph still followed along with the plan.



And now she was cowering behind a grassy dune, staring onto a rock formation in the hopes of maybe spotting a ninja. Or League assassin. What’s the difference? All she knew was that it was horribly boring. And hot. And sandy. The sand was everywhere. She had hoped that dirt in places that never saw the sunlight (sadly) would no longer be a problem after she left Garowe, but then Dick had told them that their next destination would be a fucking desert.

The three of them had split up earlier that day, Damian going to scout the presumed base from another direction, leaving Dick and Steph to fend for themselves. It was weird, Stephanie thought, Bruce had never let her go on her own during a case. Especially not when she had been this young and only just started. And yes, she knew that Dick was with her and not technically alone, but she wouldn’t have counted on Damian to trust her with his kid.

Maybe that was why she broke the tension-filled silence that had filled the space between Dick and herself:

“So… Dames lets you go out on your own?”

Dick looked at her then, dressed from head to toe in sand-colored robes, his dark hair only just visible beneath the hood of his jacket:

“Yeah, I mean why wouldn’t he?”

“Because you’re – what? – ten? And not very experienced?”

“Pff!”

The kid somehow managed to sound offended while blowing a raspberry. That seemed like a good skill to have, Steph might had to ask him to teach her that, someday.

“I am one of the best! And I am thirteen, thank you very much. Me and Damian have been working together for ages now. And that is our whole schtick: I scout and make sure that everything is going according to plan, and Dami goes inside and fulfills the contract.”

“You mean, he kills people.”

Ah, if Stephanie could only keep her mouth from running off without her consent. Dick flinched back when he heard her harsh words, obviously not counting on Steph to say something like that. Especially not so sudden and after two weeks of traveling together.

“So-“

“No, you’re right. It’s not all we do, but I help Dami kill people. But only those who deserve it! And I really don’t like it…”

Silence settled back over the desert. Steph chose to stare at the rocks again, her mind running hot with thoughts. She didn’t want to make Dick feel bad. Somehow, she always felt like the worst person on earth when Dick was hurt by one of her actions. The little gremlin had managed to weasel himself into her heart in less than a few days. And now all she wanted to do was protect him. Aw, fuck.

She didn’t want to hurt him, but this was important. Dick wanted to bring her and Damian and _Jason_ back to Bruce. But didn’t he know that Damian’s idea when it came to killing had been the reason why they had their falling out in the first place?

“If you don’t like it, why do you keep on helping him?”

“I… I like Dami. He is great. And he is the Wraith. He never once forced me to do something I didn’t want to do. I can fight, but he never taught me how to kill. So, why should I be allowed to tell him what to do?”

Steph was baffled. And she couldn’t quite stifle the disbelieving chuckle that wanted to escape:

“That is a remarkable personal philosophy when it comes to things like liking horrible TV or being vegetarian. But killing people? Dickie, that is not a question of personal difference. Or taste.”

Her words made no impact on the boy. Dick only shrugged his shoulder, choosing to stare into the bare landscape in front of them, instead of looking at her. And when she heard his next words, she knew why:

“Is that why you stopped working for Deathstroke? Personal differences?”

This- No, the boy couldn’t know- Nobody knew about- No! This was her secret and her secret alone!

For once in her life Stephanie was saved by Damian. His voice sounded grainy over the old telephones they had recycled into a simple comm unit:

“The base is empty, and without a connection to a Pit. Retreat and regroup in twenty. Over.”

Damian Wayne was a bitch who would be the death of her one day, but his preciseness made it easy to push everything else down and just start packing up their camp.

“Come on. We have to hurry if we don’t want to keep Dames waiting. He could get an aneurism if his holy schedule is interrupted.”

Dick was still not looking at her, his tiny hands quick and steadfast while sorting their equipment into bags. Meanwhile, her hands were shaking, and she knew he was seeing it, too.

This was supposed to be in the past. She had moved on. She had returned to Leslie, and she had done her best by never thinking about it again. And now… this.

They shouldered their bags, Steph ready to lead Dick down the path to their vehicle as fast as possible, when Dick’s tiny voice sounded behind her:

“Sorry. It wasn’t my place to bring it up.”

No, it wasn’t.

“Come on. We have to regroup.”

But she wouldn’t say so.

After Lake Nasser came El-Wahat el-Bahariya, shortly followed by a fight in the tight alleys of Giza with a bunch of free-lance assassins. They decided to leave Egypt after that, traveling through Saudi Arabia, checking possible bases in Tabuk and An Nuayriyah without success. They were either long abandoned or without this fucking Pit they sought.

After weeks on the road Steph was sick of it. She should have just said ‘fuck it’ and left when she still had the chance. But, no, she had looked into Dick’s big, blue eyes and let herself be swayed like a teenage girl. She was 25, for fucks sake, and currently hiding behind a crate full of finely woven carpets because someone really didn’t like them in Shiraz.

The sound of bullets hitting wood and wool did nothing to sooth Steph’s nerves. Especially since neither Dick nor Damian had any kind of long-distance weapon. Idiots.

“And now tell me again why you only have a sword?”

“It is an honorable weapon and I will not stand by while you mock it, Brown. This sword has killed hundreds, it has been in the al’Ghul family since Ra’s had it forged in 1304. This is true craftsmanship, which explains why you have no eye for it, of course, but-“

“Guys?”

“Oh? I have no eye for it? At least I have the hand-eye coordination to fire a fucking gun and save us right now. If I had a gun! Of course!”

“Um, guys?”

“Hand-eye coordination? You? Please. You were a failure as Batgirl when it came to any kind of throwing weapon. But then again: You were a failure anyways!”

“Excuse me? You want to call me a failure? I wasn’t the one Bruce threw out of the city! No, that was you. Me? Oh, Bruce loves me!”

“GUYS!”

Steph tore her eyes away from the furious gaze of Damian to look at Dick. The boy was crouched in front of them both, further away from the bullets flying in their direction since the crate they were currently hiding behind wouldn’t be standing for much longer.

The look on Dick’s face was one of pure disappointment and exasperation. It was the look of a parent who had turned around for a minute only to find his kids fighting when he looked again. Which was hilarious because Dick was 13 and small. Still, the look alone managed to make Steph feel chastised and a glance in Damian’s direction told her that she wasn’t the only one who’s cheeks were colored by embarrassment. 

“Sorry.”

“I am ashamed of my behavior, Little Bird.”

Of course, Damian always had to one-up her.

“It’s alright. I just thought you should know that I searched through some of the other boxes while you two fought like furies and found something we could use.”

In Dick’s hands laid a handgun. It was small, one of those you hid in your purse, and Dick expertly showed them that it was loaded. 

“Wha-?”

“I guess, we do now know why the nice carpet merchant didn’t like us looking into his crates. He ain’t just a carpet merchant. More of a _carpet mercenary_ , am I right?”

It was still weird to see a child grinning while saying something so… dangerous and dumb, but Stephanie had spent enough time around Dick Grayson by now to know that the kid got high on adrenaline and danger. And bad puns.

She could basically hear Damian roll his eyes.

“Whatever. Give it to me.”

Steph didn’t hesitate before grabbing the gun from Dick. She was better with shooting it anyway. Not caring for the dangerous look in Damian’s eyes, she turned around, facing the mostly destroyed crate. It was eerily silent for a situation this dangerous.

The bullet rain had died down somewhat, the opposition probably waiting for them to leave their hidey-hole, but Stephanie had other ideas for getting out of this situation.

Her voice was clear cut with no room for disagreements when she whispered:

“Okay. Here’s the plan: Damian, you distract them with your fancy sword over there” – she gestured to a mountain of boxes on her left – “meanwhile I’ll shoot down as many of them as I can. You hear me fire the fifth bullet and on that sign we all start running. Dick, you stay behind us. Copy?”

Both of them nodded, Damian for once not challenging her authority. He was deadly silent when he sneaked behind another set of boxes, vanishing from view. Steph cocked the gun, shifting into a stance more comfortable for shooting the bad guys. Or the other guys. Steph was no longer sure on what side of morality she was operating.

Dick was crouched behind her, a serious expression on his face. He had a pair of sticks in his hands, the position of them indicating that Dick knew how to use them. He had probably seen the amount of wood laying around and decided to gear himself up. And apparently the boy knew how to fight escrima. Steph learned something new every day.

“You alright there, bud?”

“Yeah. And now, finish them!”

There was something diabolical in Dick’s gaze when he uttered the words, but Steph complied. She took a few steps forward, slowly searching for a position in which it was easier to see her targets.

A few feet to her left, Damian jumped over a couple of crates, his beloved sword swinging wide. He managed to take down one of the more unfortunate goons with a swift slash through his throat before the rest of the room noticed him.

And with that the yelling and shooting started back up again.

Steph left her cover before she could think about it, raising her gun and shooting the man closest to her in the shoulder. The next one was hit in the knee. The guy after that ended up with a hole in his stomach. Steph tried to make her shots as non-lethal as possible, but she had no time to think. The only thing she could do was shoot. And hit.

Which was why her fourth shot went wide, of course, the lady in question noticing her in the last possible moment. But before Steph could start to worry about her opponent firing back, Damian was upon her, using his sword as an advantage against the AK-47 in the hands of the only other woman besides Steph in the room. The fight was short lived, the woman no longer a problem after Damian was done with her.

There were only three opponents left standing, and Steph fired her fifth shot into the knee of the man in front of the door, seeing Damian and Dick ready themselves from the corner of her eyes and yelled:

“RUN!”

They ran.

Steph sent her last bullet flying wide, trying to hit the guy to her left but missing. Not that she had to worry. Even running Damian was able to defeat his enemies easily, especially with Dick by his side. The store felt longer than it probably was, all of them just trying to reach the sunlit doorway to get back on the streets of Shiraz.

Steph could feel the blood pumping through her veins, the adrenaline making her giddy, and she realized, once again, how long it had been since she had felt this alive. There had been a reason she became Batgirl in the first place. She had wanted to stop her father, of course, but she also sought this surge of joy that came from barely surviving an altercation.

Turning around, Steph saw one of the guys battling Dick, who used his improvised escrima with the knowledge of a pro. He was only a few feet away from the freedom promised by the doorway, handling the situation expertly. Still, they had to get away, and Damian had already reached the door, his legs unfairly longer than theirs. One glance at the now useless gun in her hand told Steph just what to do. When Dick ducked under the fist of his enemy, Steph chucked the gun across the room, hitting the unsuspecting goon right in the face.

Dick’s look of utter surprise was hilarious, and he grinned when she motioned for him to start running again. They had no time to lose. Soon most of these guys would wake up again, and the three of them should try to get away before any of that happened.

They ran through the streets of Shiraz together, evading street vendors, passersby, and civilians going through the motions of their life.

Steph constantly kept one eye on Damian in front of her, the crowd parting when his large frame came into view, and Dick by her side, who jumped and twisted over every obstacle that presented itself. She could feel her legs start to burn and her lungs reminding her that while she might still be fit, she was no longer an active vigilante.

It was great.

She couldn’t quite quell the laughter bubbling in her throat – didn’t want to really – and with every weird stare she got, Stephanie felt more alive.

She wanted to leave Somalia to become Batgirl again, and maybe that hadn’t worked out, but here she was, running away from random bad guys with guns, chasing the first Falcon through the streets of a city, with an adorable kid-hero by her side. It was her teenage years all over again.

Just a bit more morally grey.

So, what if Dick was sending them on a wild goose chase? What if Steph didn’t believe that this insane plan would work? At least she had fun again!

They came to a halt in a dark alley far away from the trouble of the market quarter. Steph had to lean against the wall, huffing and puffing until she felt as if she could breathe again. Fuck, it had been too long since she had run like this. But Damian and Dick also needed the break, from the looks of it.

Damian had his head thrown back, hands on his hips, taking one deep breath after the other, while Dick had dramatically thrown himself on the floor before realizing that that might have been a bad idea. Now he was squatting while going through the motions of a breathing exercise. Steph wasn’t really sure how effective that was, but, hey, to each their own.

She sent them a grin when she was capable of standing upright again:

“So, I guess we know now that this _carpet mercenary_ has a connection to the League. We might actually be on the right track.”

Dick whooped. And he didn’t stop whooping. It took her a moment but then Steph realized that Dick was performing an actual victory dance. While squatting. There was nothing at all holding back her laughter now.

“You two are terrible.”

Steph might be hallucinating, but she thought there was actual fondness in Damian’s voice when he said that. The tender look on his face was nothing new, but Steph was normally only able to catch it if she was sneaky. It was a look after all that was only meant to be seen by Dick alone. By his kid.

“Aw, you love us.”

And for the first time Steph was actually ready to admit that Damian could be rather cool. That she liked him in a weird rival-friends sorta way. Which was why he immediately destroyed every warm and fuzzy feeling Steph might have had:

“Anyways, I was wondering something: How come you are such a great shot, Brown? I wasn’t joking back there when I said you couldn’t shoot straight as Batgirl.”

Ah. Yeah. There was that.

The grin slipped off her lips, her forehead wrinkling in annoyance and exhaustion. She didn’t want to talk about it. But she could feel the concern radiating from Dick, his worried glances anything but subtle. He knew why. Any maybe that would make it easier.

“Why don’t you just ask Dick?”

“Richard?”

The confusion in Damian’s gaze soothed some of the aches in Stephanie’s heart. Damian didn’t know everything his little bird did. Steph wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. She wasn’t the only hurting because of her past.

“I… Deathstroke.”

There was a crease between Dick’s dark eyebrows. And immediately Steph did realize just what she was doing. She was using a kid to air out her dirty laundry. And no, maybe the Stephanie, daughter of Cluemaster, would have done something like this, or Steph, Deathstroke’s Renegade, but she no longer was that girl, these girls. She had grown since then.

“Yeah, Deathstroke. I worked under him for a while.”

“You what?”

“I was Renegade. I was 19, mad at the world, mad at Leslie, and then I met Deathstroke and he recognized me, offered me a chance to get out. He trained me, I became a damn good sharpshooter, and then when he asked the impossible of me, I left.”

Damian stared at her; the bafflement clear as day on his face. This had certainly not been what he had thought he would hear.

“That’s how I knew Steph was alive. Deathstroke offered to train me and he said something about me being a worthier Bat or something, which is bullshit, obviously. But it made me curious regarding what or who he meant. And the process of elimination let me to the conclusion that it must have been Steph that Deathstroke was talking about. That she had to be alive, somewhere.”

Dick’s voice was silent. And yet he didn’t sound scared or afraid, no, there was a steely resolve in his voice, something that told Steph that Dick had wanted to talk about this for a long time but couldn’t since Steph shut off whenever Deathstroke got mentioned. The kid was so clever and intuitive sometimes, that Steph feared he would get killed because of that one day.

“And then? Deathstroke trained you and after that you didn’t return because of what?”

There was still something biting in Damian’s tone, but Steph wasn’t an idiot. She knew the protective glare of a parent when she saw it, and right now Damian was afraid of Deathstroke ever touching Dickie. Hell, Stephanie would do everything in her power from now on to make sure that didn’t happen. Ever.

“Because I felt guilty as fuck. I wasn’t worthy of Batgirl anymore. And so, I returned to Leslie, my tail between my legs, and she offered me a place in one of her medical school courses. And that’s what I did since then. I have a nursing degree, field training, and some skills when it comes to combat first aid. That last one was experience, not Leslie teaching me.”

She shrugged. What else could she offer them? That she had woken up, alive, after Black Mask tortured her to death, only to be told that she would have long, long recovery in front of her? Oh, and she was legally dead now. That she hated Leslie with a passion while also owing everything to her? No. These things belonged to her and her alone.

Apparently, a few tears had decided to run down her cheeks, and before Steph could really get a reign on all these emotions that were suddenly popping up, a pair of arms slung themselves around her. Dick. The boy was hugging her, tightly, and Steph could only do one thing: Hug him back.

He was so small. He was so precious. Steph could understand how a man like Damian had come to love a boy like that. Fuck, she had started to love the kid like her own, too.

“Dami! Come! You have to hug her, too! You were the one who made her cry.”

“I was not the one who made Brown cry, Little Bird.”

Why was it always such a drama with the guy?

“Damian. Hug me.”

And Damian – for what must have been the first time in his life – complied. It was the most awkward hug in the history of hugs. Damian tried to keep his distance, even with Dick forcefully keeping him in place, and Steph was pretty sure the only contact between the two of them – her and Dames – was his hand roughly patting her back. She really hoped, for Dick if for no one else, that Damian was better at hugging someone when he actually liked them.

And, yet… it was nice. It was nice standing in a dark alley in Shiraz, hiding from a group of guys who were affiliated with what was left of the League of Assassins, and hugging the only two people Steph could honestly say _knew_ her. They were her weird-ass family and it felt good to air out some dirty laundry. And what was she even afraid of? Damian killed for sport and Dick called missions ‘Murder Adventures’.

Their standards were pretty fucking low.

Their hug was really getting awkward now, which was why Damian thankfully saved all of them by saying:

“I think, we have a lead, too. And it is time to call in some outside help if we want this plan to succeed.”

“What do you mean?”

“It might be time to call Duke Thomas”

They were once again crouching behind a few rocks, staring at another dozen rocks in the desert. It was a different desert, yes, but it was still a desert.

Another month of running around Iran, slowly making their way into Afghanistan, had finally ended with what Steph hoped to be their last stop: Dasht-e Margo, a hundred miles off the road of Lashkar Gah. It had taken them a week to make it this far into the desert and Steph could only emphasize again how much she hated deserts.

Why did the League of Assassins only settle in fucking sand holes? Why?

Why not a nice Oasis? Or the Nile Delta! Zagreb! Kairo! Kandahar! A city for God’s sake. Or a forest. A steppe. Just something that was not full of sand. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently, yes. So, Steph gritted her teeth and made her way through dune after dune, silently cursing her own existence. If this adventure was done, Steph would happily go on a mission in Shanghai or East London. Something with less sand and more people. She kinda missed humans other than Dick and this grumpy sack of flour they called Damian.

The grumpy sack of flour that was currently explaining the mission perimeters again:

“And then you do what, Richard?”

“I climb into the vents at the east entrance, crawl a hundred feet straight north, then 20 feet west until I reach the control room and disable the guards and the security system.”

“Good. And you, Brown?”

“I wait until the red light on the security camera shuts down and I can make my way into the western hangar. Then I go find the basement, slowly disabling any guards I come across until I reach the vaults. Just like we talked about a thousand times already.”

“And we’ll talk about it some more until I am happy with the level of _conviction_ in your voice when you repeat your instructions.”

“You are an ass, Dames”

Steph grinned while saying it and she knew she didn’t imagine the slight twitch in the corner of Damian’s mouth. They had gotten better over the last few weeks and now they only really insulted each other when both of their fuses were burned down.

They went over the plan again, of course.

The idea was easy enough: They knew that this base of the League had a Lazarus Pit in its vault and only a minimum amount of guards stationed here. They would take over the base, disable the security system, knock out every assassin currently home, and hold the base until Duke arrived with the rotten corpse of Jason Todd.

Great, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Sometimes Steph wondered why she did this. Why she agreed to this madness. She didn’t even know Jason Todd. She had never met him, had never known him. She had no idea if he liked country music or Jazz, if he wanted to fight or to read. If he was a nice guy or an asshole.

And yet here she was risking her life for a chance to find out.

In the corner of her eye she could see Dick sneak towards the eastern entrance of the giant underground facility. Duke had helped them single this one out, and if you didn’t know where exactly it was hidden in the stones and rocks of the Dasht-e Margo you would never be able to find it.

Steph watched as Damian unsheathed his sword, once again being the one to act as the distraction. He would knock on the front doors of the base and start fighting his way through the ranks like a tank. And all the while Dick would have no one to interrupt his slow crawl towards the control room. No one to possibly harm their boy.

Oh, God. Dick was _their_ boy now. Gruesome.

With Damian almost reaching the gates, Steph knew it was time to move herself. The west hangar of the facility was hidden beneath a flat slap of stone. It was impossible to see the opening into the cavernous underground from most sides and a giant number of hidden cameras made sure that you didn’t come too close to the secret passageway even if you saw it.

Steph didn’t want to find out what kind of gadgets and booby-traps were hiding in the sand surrounding the entrance, instead watching the light sensor Dick had attached to one of the more obvious cameras for the okay to proceed.

She didn’t have to wait long.

The small red light died down and Steph was moving again, her feet silent on the soft ground. Nobody was in the hangar when she made her way inside. Only a few vehicles were standing around, the base only running on minimal personnel ever since Damian destroyed the League.

She had to admit, killing Ra’s al’Ghul and his family had been pretty effective in keeping one of the most dangerous criminal organizations from regrouping in a matter of months. The League was still trying to rebuild itself, even years after what Damian had done. It was impressive, alright.

She would never tell Damian that, of course, but, you know, she appreciated it when a job was well done.

The hangar was dark, and it felt eerie to walk these ancient hallways without meeting anyone. No ninja, no bloodshed, no dramatic show-down. It was easy to dismantle the cars and move on.

She reached the door to the main area before another noise besides her echoing footsteps was audible. The door crashed open, and instead of being the person being surprised, Steph reacted, ramming her knee into the crotch of the unsuspecting assassin.

It was a fast battle, if you could even call it that. Steph only had hit her victim twice before it fell silent, too surprised by her presence – and the knee to his crotch – to defend himself against the nerve strike that followed. She bound his wrists and tranquilized him, making sure he would still be there when she came back later.

She moved forward, keeping to silent nooks and dark corners as she made her way deeper into the heart of the base. From a distance she could hear the sounds of a battle, the clang of steel meeting steel. Sometimes there were other noises as well, yelling, or cries of anguish, but for the most part, it was the sweet sound of a fight.

Stephanie only met another handful of guards before she reached the vault in the deep corners or the hallways that were more similar to caves than actual halls. These parts of the facility had never been outfitted with electricity and there were endlessly burning torches that illuminated her journey into the true heart of the League of Assassins.

The door was a complicated thing, intricate decorations doubling as tricks and traps to keep invaders out, but that was okay. They had Damian after all, and he knew how to open these kinds of doors. His grandfather had personally shown him, after he brought him back.

And now they would use this knowledge to open the door and bring another one of Batman’s sons back.

Now, Stephanie had to wait. Wait for Dick to make his way to her – safely – and for Damian to finish all of his opponents. To no one’s surprise Dick was the first one to reach her. There had been fewer risks in his part of the job after all, and Stephanie felt relief wash over her when she saw his shadow come down the hallway.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

He sounded unsure. He shouldn’t sound unsure. Steph motioned for him to come closer and he complied. God, he was so much easier to handle than Damian. But when the light of the torch next to Steph finally touched him, she could see why his voice might have shaken: There was a gash on his forearm.

“Ouch. That looks like it hurt.”

Steph kept her tone friendly and sympathetic when she inspected the wound. It wasn’t deep and Dick probably knew that, but flesh wounds always looked really impressive and the amount of blood liked to trick the mind into thinking it was worse than it actually was.

“It’s just the flesh. I didn’t see the third guy in the room. But he only managed to hit my arm before I knocked him out. And the security system was super easy to hack. It could have been from the _stone ages_. Eh?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on!”

Aw, dang. Dick made it awfully easy to like him. She dressed his wound as good as she was currently able to – and once Duke was here she would use the first aid kit from the Bat-plane to really attend to it – and tousled his hair, when he dared to grimace at her knot tying technique. 

“It is too tight.”

“It isn’t. And now shut up, someone is coming!”

But it was only Damian, dressed in the blood of his enemies. His gait was dangerous, his stance still battle ready, but once he saw Dick and recognized them, he relaxed.

“What happened, Little Bird?”

It would always shock Steph how soft Damian sounded when he spoke with Dick. It was endearing. It was sweet. It was… a tiny bit weird, if Stephanie was being honest, but, hey, maybe Damian was the caring, father-ly type.

“Oh, and I get no ‘hello’?”

“Don’t be such a drama queen, Brown.”

“I’m fine by the way. It was barely a scratch!”

Dick had made sure that neither Steph nor Damian could focus too much on their banter. Instead all of Damian’s attention was now directed at Dick, checking him over like the mother hen he was.

“Are you really alright? You know I want you to be honest with me, Richard.”

“Yes. It stings a little, but I’ve had worse. It is nothing.”

And now the thing happened that surprised her every time she saw it: Damian stood up, nodded, and went on doing what he had come to do. He would worry about Dick, care for him, but the moment Dick told him that everything was alright, that he was okay, Damian would let it go. Because they trusted each other. Because Dick might be tiny, and young, and playful, but he was also damn good at what he did. He was better than Steph had been at that age, maybe even better than Damian had been.

Happy that his kid wasn’t bleeding out, Damian went to work on the door instead. It took a couple of minutes and Steph watched fascinated as Damian pressed flowers into the woodwork, pushed hidden keys into keyholes who hadn’t existed moments ago, and turned levers Steph had been sure were actual calligraphy.

And then the door opened.

It felt like a magical moment, especially with the green light that flooded the hallway they were standing in.

Dick was the first through the door, his awed “Woah!” proof enough that their quest had been successful. They had stormed a League base and won. They had found a Lazarus Pit. They had finished this crazy adventure Dick’s twisted idea of family had sent them on.

Her steps were cautious when Steph crossed the threshold into the cave, breath catching in her throat, when she saw the pool full of glowing green water. They had done it. They really, truly _did it_.

Next to her, Damian was grinning. It wasn’t a happy grin, per se, but it was one of accomplishment. It was a proud one. _They had done it_.

And then Damian’s phone rang. One look on the caller ID and he accepted.

Steph didn’t even want to know which devil Damian had sold his soul to, to get reception in the caves under a secret assassin’s base in the middle of an Afghan desert. But here they were, her and Dick celebrating and Damian was on the phone. Typical.

Only Damian didn’t look like celebrating anymore, instead his face had lost its color, the green hue not really helping his complexion. Dick noticed it too and asked:

“What’s going on?”

And Damian looked them in the eyes, standing in the middle of their destination of their months long quest and said:

“Thomas just called. He says the grave is empty. Jason Todd’s body is not in his grave. We lost the fucking corpse.”


End file.
